Wow - interesting. Federal Govt. security clearances are free here (Australia) or at least free to the applicant themselves. The government department hiring the employee may pay for them - I'm not sure - or they may in fact be completely free for everyone involved. All I know is that I have had to get one several times (due to expiry etc.) and in each case, no payment of money was involved.
We can buy whatever flights we want too (well, subject to any contractual conditions to the contrary, but I've worked with at least ten different departments here and never seen anything like that). Obviously it's at our own cost/risk if something DOES get rescheduled, but at least the choice is there.
I can't imagine it actually costs that much in man-hours for the relevant authorities to do the necessary checks and grant you a security clearance. Quite a nice little money-maker they seem to have found there (shhh, don't give the Australian Federal Govt. any ideas!)
>> "why "guess" when you could research and at least make an "informed guess"?"
Fair point. I suppose it depends on whether one considers an Internet forum which people casually browse and comment on articles the kind of place where you expect to always see properly researched and informed comments. If someone is just browsing for a few minutes in their lunch break and something pops into their head, they may comment. And often end up being wrong. Yes, it would have been better not to comment in the first place, but most don't exercise that kind of restraint on an open forum like this. Often these kind of sites are just outlets for people to say what they think (right or wrong) and discuss. Are you expecting everything someone puts on a casual forum, or happens to say in conversation to someone, to be properly researched? That would be nice, but it's not realistic IMO.
Yes I was wrong and shouldn't have posted. I suppose I was just shocked by what seemed a disproportionate response, given this is an Internet forum, not a peer-reviewed research journal. Like someone attacking you with a cricket bat because you made a mistake and bumped into them on the escalator.
>> Are you arguing that disinformation is harmless - or that feeling "validated" is more important?
Absolutely not. Like you I value objective fact. I had no 'preconceptions' on this topic really... can't say I've ever thought much about it. What you have added to the conversation has assisted me in forming an opinion, however.
>> as if stupidity and "having an opinion" are some sort of rights.
Wouldn't say they are rights, just human nature. People have opinions about things whether they mean to or not, or whether they are informed or not. What distinguishes people is the degree to which they are prepared to change those opinions in the face of evidence that doesn't support them.
The funny thing is, from what I've read, I would agree with you on this and most other topics. I'm a fairly zero-tolerance person when it comes to crime, stupidity and the rest of it... especially on the roads. I am very pro-police and I am ~not~ one of those "traffic infringements are just revenue raising" people (I'm actually kind of mortified if I came off that way!) And living where I do in a fairly dodgy (by Canberra standards) place in the inner north, I'm pretty aware of the 'world around me' which contains much worse things than some guy having a go at me on the Internet. (I could easily afford to live elsewhere but being relatively young, I'm attempting to save a deposit for a house, and the rent is cheap here).
Anyway it's all good - I was wrong (and lazy with regards to research) and you pulled me up on it. I don't think you're trolling. I was just taken aback a bit. I do respect you for the ability to state a strong and well-founded opinion with no pretence of needing to sugar-coat it or 'be nice'. I certainly couldn't do it - weak and naive perhaps. So apologies for my lazy post and my thin-skinned reaction to your reply. I probably just need to HTFU a bit.
Whoa, what the hell? Why are you so defensive/argumentative?!
I wasn't claiming to state facts - I was expressing my guesses on what purposes drones could possibly be used for (since the article didn't really go into much depth). One that sprung to mind was to replace police on the ground in situations like car chases. From your response I take it you have access to the statistics, and knowledge of the reasons drones are being considered, and that indeed, they ARE being seen as a solution to that problem. The article/headline does not convey that, in actually kinda gives the impression that they'd be ALWAYS flying. You OTOH seem to suggest they would be flown on-demand. That makes a lot more sense... but was not obvious from the article.
The average guy, watching the news or reading the papers, would be lucky to hear about ~5 car chases per year. That's all I was saying. A sentence starting "you'd be lucky to..." is hardly the same as saying "there were"... it's hardly indicating that the speaker is attempting to state actual facts. I don't have "delusions" about any of this - I am uninformed and was merely taking a guess based on what I observe. Now I know more details - so thank you for that, but I don't know why you think I was attempting to make an argument against drones, or to state facts. I was doing neither of those things, merely expressing what I imagine most average people would think reading this article.
Also at no point did I agree with the GP regarding the "victimless crime" thing. Just because someone adds a post to a thread does not mean they agree with everything in the parent post! Yet you take another vindictive stab at me, suggesting I think stolen vehicles are "another victimless crime?". What the hell? I never suggested any such thing. (Also what makes you think I'm going to make a 'next prediction' - I never even made a first 'prediction'... just stated that I couldn't see, from the info in the article, what purpose/benefit these were going to bring cf. the associated cost).
Seriously I don't understand why you took this tone with me. You had a lot of interesting info in your post and it does appear that yes, in fact these drones are definitely worth considering. But it really seems you have a chip in your shoulder about something since you responded so aggressively to a post that was essentially a casual train of thought, rather than one purporting to be against the proposal, or one purporting to be stating facts.
DVDs aren't blurays. Also, games consoles don't seem to get treated in the same way as stand-alone players for some reason...I don't know the technicalities.
Yep. The ACCC is one government body that is very well respected here in Australia and usually (though not always) fights the good fight. They are the reason that things like DVD region locking isn't permitted here (DVD players in Australia are sold region-unlocked, capable of playing any disc). They are the reason we have a pretty competitive mobile phone and internet industry compared to many places (lots of choice of ISPs and phone companies compared to the US). They are the reason why there are certain automatic levels of quality guarantees and warranties for all products purchased in Australia that cannot be avoided by vendors no matter what disclaimers they may choose to write in the fine print.
TBH most Australian government bodies/public authorities, except the legislature itself, are run pretty competently and rank well by world standards of transparency/anti-corruption (though not as well as our friends across the Tasman in New Zealand - who are consistently at the very top of that list).
It's just the politicians (legislature) themselves that seem to be the idiots, mostly (especially at the moment with our minority-government situation and petty squabbles over relatively insignificant issues). But Australians don't have the same level of mistrust of government in general that they seem to in the US (where anything run by government is assumed to be inefficient and/or corrupt by default). Because on the whole, they do a decent job and keep this country running pretty smoothly (and importantly in the current economic climate - solvently, with low sovereign debt).
'Highway' doesn't necessarily mean a nice, 4-lane, divided, controlled-access road with no sharp turns. A highway, in Australia at least, is any trunk road between towns/cities designated as such. Plenty are crappy 2 lane roads with sharp turns, particularly in the mountainous areas in the east of the country. Hell, there are even designated state highways in Australia that are DIRT ROADS (e.g. parts of the Silver City Highway north of Broken Hill).
Having said that, as I local, I can tell you that the road in Canberra that is getting these point-to-point cameras is the Tuggeranong Parkway which is a metro-area, 4-6 lane, divided controlled-access road in relatively good condition. It would be difficult not to see other drivers on it. However Canberra also has a BIG problem with kangaroos - far moreso than any other capital city in Australia. Plague proportions really... you'd be hard pressed to find a driver here that hasn't hit, or nearly hit, a kangaroo. And those are pretty big animals - cause as much damage as hitting a deer in the US.
Yeah point-to-point speeding cameras may be new to the ACT but as you say I've seen them in Melbourne before, and there's been some on the Federal Highway in NSW (between Sydney and Canberra) for a while now. First genuinely effective way of ensuring people don't speed on a stretch of road that I've seen (let's face it, once you know where the traditional speed cameras are, you just slow down... go past... and speed back up again). They are a bit irritating because, yes I admit, I usually set the cruise control on 117 km/h going from CBR to SYD (on 110 km/h roads), which won't get you pulled over in NSW, but is enough to trigger these P2P cameras. The stretch between Canberra and Sydney is quite a decent distance too - around 30-40 km between each end, so you have to make sure you don't go over 110 at all during that period.
I knew American cellular plans were costly, but holy crap that is expensive. A $30 add-on just to tether!?
That's ~more~ than I pay per month for my ENTIRE PHONE PLAN (calls, texts, data). I can use the included data in any way I want, tethered or otherwise, no add-on required. And I live in Australia which is not exactly renowned for being cheap when it comes to telecommunications...
I'm actually moving to live in the US next year and will likely be there for a couple of years at least. Seems like I'll be spending a lot more on a mobile phone than I'm used to. (Though that's OK because the cost of most other things in the US - food, clothing, rent etc. - is ridiculously cheap compared to here)
Precisely. I honestly cannot see this happening. I live in Canberra and I can tell you that there's no way in hell they're gonna spend the money on expensive crap like drones in this city.
Drones would only help in situations where the cameras located a vehicle, and you needed to follow it. It could thus be useful to follow getaway cars from a major crime, hit and run perpetrators etc.... but honestly the number of these situations in a given year in a city like Canberra with only ~400,000 people is not enough to justify the expense. We'd be lucky to have more than about 5 actual police chases a year here.
What I expect might happen is that they will expand use of the speed cameras to log unregistered and unlicensed vehicles (cop cars in Canberra already do this automatically using the RAPID system which scans the plates of other cars around the police car and alerts the officers if it detects one that's not registered). I have no real complaints about that - the RAPID system is very effective and unlicensed vehicles/drivers are generally not the sort of people you want on the roads anyway.
I think you might have taken a few exaggerated and inaccurate Slashdot headlines without the requisite grain of salt:
- Your point about guns is true, but keep in mind the context you are talking about here. There was very, very little private ownership of guns in Australia from the start. Gun laws were indeed toughened up and a buy-back instituted during the late 90s but it wasn't a particularly controversial issue because we simply don't have the gun culture that countries like the US do. If you have a legitimate reason to own guns (sports shooter, farmer, security, etc etc.) and are appropriately licensed, you could, and still can, own a gun. But the rest of us don't care that we can't because 99.9% of us never did and have probably never thought about guns in our lives.
- What non-opt out internet filtering? Please stop spreading this myth. That proposal never even made it to the "introduced into Parliament as a Bill" stage, let alone actually got through the House and Senate and enacted into law. It was shot down in flames by the public and by most of the political parties. Two ISPs did implement a very basic filter blocking a handful of sites using a trivial-to-overcome method (they were not forced to do so - they did it of their own accord). But there are literally dozens of choices of ISPs in almost every area and if you don't like it, you are free to move to on of the other 95% of ISPs who don't filter.
- What P2P traffic monitoring? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about and I follow the Internet industry here pretty closely. Are you confusing something you've read about a ~particular~ ISP's policy, and applying that to the country as a whole?
- Aussie cattle dogs as common as mud here - the stereotypical farmer's or tradesman's dog. They don't generally have the same temperament as a pit bull so I'm not sure why they would be legislated against? Particularly as they are considered a national icon in many ways.
Look I understand where you're coming from, but please, please remember that Slashdot articles are often hyped up, inaccurate and filled with hyperbole. Doubly so for stories originating outside the US where readers might not be aware of the other relevant facts and overall context of the article. The net filtering thing is a good example - it was constantly reported on here as if it was a done deal and we were all going to be subject to mandatory filtering, whereas the reality on the ground is that it was politically untenable and most people could see it couldn't/wasn't going to happen. And it didn't. A proposal by a few senators does not equal an enacted law... but to this day half of Slashdot seems to think there is some kind of mandatory government-forced filtering here.
The Australian character has changed over the last few decades to be sure (although not so much once you move outside of the large cities). That is inevitable - we are still a young country that is still maturing in many ways. What has changed though is the degree to which every little idea, random thought and proposal is reported on (often in as inflammatory language as possible to get page views).
There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be levelled against Australia without having to make things up. And on the flip side there are plenty of areas in which we can say we have resisted some of the big brother stuff seen in other countries - we have nowhere near the level of CCTV coverage as Europe does, we still have decent warrant requirements and safeguards regarding wiretapping, we have strong privacy and consumer protection laws, and we can still get on a plane without being nudie scanned, without taking our shoes off, without having to package up our liquids into sandwich bags etc etc. Every country has its vices and I don't think anywhere can truly say it's resisted Big Brother completely, unfortunately.
Say what? Copper itself doesn't have inherently more latency than fibre (in fact, the propagation speed of a signal in copper is slightly faster than light in fibre). I suspect you are referring to frame interleaving commonly used on xDSL connections. Which can be turned off. My ISP allows you to change this setting from the toolbox on their website... first hop latency reduces from ~20 ms to ~9 ms if I do so. Once you're past the first hop the additional latency to the destination will obviously be the same regardless of the last-mile medium of delivery.
A true fibre connection would reduce this first hop to almost zero, admittedly, so would still exhibit less latency - true. But I think it's a bit of a stretch to call an extra ~9 ms of latency a "problem of copper".
You can get it significantly cheaper than the RRP if you look around a bit. Plus remember it's a combined DSL modem, gigabit router, NAS, SIP VoIP/DECT phone base station etc. all in one...
Having said that, yeah, it costs more than typical consumer-level crap because, well, it is somewhat better than typical consumer-level crap. People here only change out their DSL modem/router very occasionally (I had my previous one for 8 years, and used it on 4 different ISPs during that time), so it's not too bad considering how long it will last.
Well where I live, nothing hangs above train tracks. They are either diesel powered (for long-haul interstate trains), or powered via electricity fed through the rails themselves (which AFAIK isn't capable of providing a data connection).
Oh agreed. What I was saying was merely that "more speed without an increase in download limit" isn't necessarily a bad thing (in general - this applies to any connection, home, mobile, or whatever).
If your mobile connection was your only connection, then yes, that would suck.:)
Huh? There's a big difference between "small chunks of text" that might only be a few MB per day, and the several GB per month that most cellular data caps are. I have a 1.25 GB cap on my current phone (could buy more, but don't need it) and I stream radio, watch Youtube on the way home, tether it to my laptop in areas where WiFi isn't required and I need to download a file etc. And I never come close to using my cap... yet none of that would be possible with GPRS, or even EDGE.
What I'm saying is that there's a middle ground between "the Internet as you would use on a desktop PC", and "small chunks of text only". Plus, unless you're tethering, it's pretty unlikely you would WANT to use the Internet on a phone as you would on a desktop PC anyway...
Incorrect. Wireless is a shared medium, and these results show what happens when you have only a handful of devices on a tower. Remember that the tower's wireless bandwidth is divided among all its users.
Wired connections (of any type, but in this case FTTH) do not have this limitation. They are also not susceptible to the other problems of wireless such as interference. They also have lower latency (admittedly LTE latency is very low compared to GPRS, EDGE, HSPA and HSDPA, but it still can't match fibre).
Both fast wired AND wireless technologies are needed. They complement each other, rather than compete with each other. Fibre is needed where a reliable, fast connection is required in a fixed location (homes and businesses). Wireless is needed so that communications are ubiquitous and available to people on the move. But the latter has limited electromagnetic spectrum to work with, and there is no point chewing up that valuable spectrum with mass data-transfer applications in a fixed location (streaming video to the home, for instance), when that requirement could be better satisfied with a wired delivery mechanism.
This argument is always made anytime mention is made of metered Internet plans, whether wired or wireless. The argument is "since I can exhaust this quota by downloading at the stated maximum of 'x' Mbps in 'y' hours, it's useless, and they should really only advertise it as being a 'z' kbps plan" (where 'z' is the bitrate that would be required to exhaust the given download quota in one month).
I don't buy that argument. My home internet connection is fast, and I would buy a faster connection if one was available, but I choose to pay only for a 30 GB download quota on it. Note that I say "choose to" - higher quota plans are available to me (up to 1 TB metered, or unlimited), but I don't need that much data, so I save a bit of money by just paying for 30 GB/month. The fact that, at my line speed, I could consume that 30 GB in a few hours if I so desired, is irrelevant to me. I don't need that much data... but when I DO need/want something, I want it FAST. If the speed of my plan doubled tomorrow, it wouldn't make much difference to the amount I download. But it would mean I would only have to wait half as long when I did download. Which is good.
( NB. I'm not saying this applies to everyone. There are people with internet usage patterns out there that consume every bit of bandwidth available to them 24/7, and thus would start consuming a lot more if the speed was higher. I have friends who torrent everything under the sun just because they can, even though they will probably never get around to listening to/watching half of it. But for me? I download the stuff I want - that stuff happens to average out to 25-30 GB a month, so the 30 GB plan suits me. For 10 bucks extra per month I can upgrade to 100 GB... so as my data requirements grow (which they will over time as the quality of downloaded media and size of software increases), I can just upgrade my plan as required. But that has nothing to do with ~speed~. I want as much of that as possible, even if I only have a small download limit. )
Yep. The Airport Extreme is one of the very few consumer-grade routers than can actually route at 100 Mbps on the WAN side. Many so-called gigabit home routers can manage gigabit switching on the LAN side, but start choking on the WAN side once you get to about 50-60 Mbps.
Personally I use a FritzBox 7390. Can route at something like 400-500 Mbps on the WAN side so won't break a sweat doing 100 Mbps. Heaps of features in the firmware (QoS, VPN, SIP VoIP, DECT, traffic monitoring and blocking, line diagnostics blah blah) and compared to DLink and Netgear and all that other rubbish, and stable to boot. It is actually a combined DSL (ADSL2+/VDSL) modem and router but you can turn the modem part off and just use it as a plain old router. Has dualband 2.4 Ghz/5 Ghz WiFi too. Reason I picked this over the Airport Extreme is basically because the Airport Extreme doesn't have a web interface (you have to use Apple's proprietary configuration tool), and this does. Otherwise they are both excellent devices.
- For some Australian ISPs, it's likely that data related to this project will be unmetered (that is, not counted towards your monthly quota, if you have one); or - You have an unlimited plan; or if you don't... - You can limit the monthly data transfer in the software itself
I'm on a 60 GB quota personally but generally only use 35-40 GB of it a month. I've never come close to using it all, so I might as well help out with this and set a ~15 GB/month transfer limit on it, and it should be fine (if that's even necessary - my ISP may well make it unmetered anyway).
Not if you live in an apartment block. Every WiFi channel is so ridiculously congested it barely works during peak hours (though the 5 Ghz channels are usually OK... not too many people have a router + machines that support it yet).
I have >10 machines in my house and all, except the tablet and the smartphone, are on GigE LAN. I use it too - regularly back up machines to the NAS which definitely appreciates having GigE (real-world I don't saturate it, but I do manage 50-60 MB/s).
Admittedly though TFA is talking about gigabit WAN (to the Internet), not LAN though...
This is not a new to Korean internet users. Most internal websites, online games etc. require your Korean national ID number (and hence real name) to sign up. Only new thing here is that an international site (i.e. Google/YouTube) is honouring that local law (which they have no real obligation to do).
There has long been laws requiring real name/ID online in Korea and from what I've observed in my time there, people don't really think much of it (though that doesn't mean they ~want~ it, per se). Plus, it's pretty easy to get fake Korean national ID numbers if you want to disguise your identity online (just ask any foreigner that has done so in order to play on Korean MMO/gaming servers).
Exactly right. My home DSL provider has already implemented native IPv6 and dishes out a whole/56 prefix to me when I connect. The prefix is static... but I'm free to give each device in my home any IP within that (massive) address space that I want.
Having said that, you will note that by default, Linux and Mac OS X use the MAC address of the network interface to generate the IPv6 address. This can be changed or overridden, but it does mean that you get a bit closer in some cases to a 1 IP = 1 PC paradigm. Windows by default uses a randomly generated 'privacy IPv6 address' though, which is not tied to MAC address.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow - interesting. Federal Govt. security clearances are free here (Australia) or at least free to the applicant themselves. The government department hiring the employee may pay for them - I'm not sure - or they may in fact be completely free for everyone involved. All I know is that I have had to get one several times (due to expiry etc.) and in each case, no payment of money was involved.
We can buy whatever flights we want too (well, subject to any contractual conditions to the contrary, but I've worked with at least ten different departments here and never seen anything like that). Obviously it's at our own cost/risk if something DOES get rescheduled, but at least the choice is there.
I can't imagine it actually costs that much in man-hours for the relevant authorities to do the necessary checks and grant you a security clearance. Quite a nice little money-maker they seem to have found there (shhh, don't give the Australian Federal Govt. any ideas!)
>> "why "guess" when you could research and at least make an "informed guess"?"
Fair point. I suppose it depends on whether one considers an Internet forum which people casually browse and comment on articles the kind of place where you expect to always see properly researched and informed comments. If someone is just browsing for a few minutes in their lunch break and something pops into their head, they may comment. And often end up being wrong. Yes, it would have been better not to comment in the first place, but most don't exercise that kind of restraint on an open forum like this. Often these kind of sites are just outlets for people to say what they think (right or wrong) and discuss. Are you expecting everything someone puts on a casual forum, or happens to say in conversation to someone, to be properly researched? That would be nice, but it's not realistic IMO.
Yes I was wrong and shouldn't have posted. I suppose I was just shocked by what seemed a disproportionate response, given this is an Internet forum, not a peer-reviewed research journal. Like someone attacking you with a cricket bat because you made a mistake and bumped into them on the escalator.
>> Are you arguing that disinformation is harmless - or that feeling "validated" is more important?
Absolutely not. Like you I value objective fact. I had no 'preconceptions' on this topic really ... can't say I've ever thought much about it. What you have added to the conversation has assisted me in forming an opinion, however.
>> as if stupidity and "having an opinion" are some sort of rights.
Wouldn't say they are rights, just human nature. People have opinions about things whether they mean to or not, or whether they are informed or not. What distinguishes people is the degree to which they are prepared to change those opinions in the face of evidence that doesn't support them.
The funny thing is, from what I've read, I would agree with you on this and most other topics. I'm a fairly zero-tolerance person when it comes to crime, stupidity and the rest of it ... especially on the roads. I am very pro-police and I am ~not~ one of those "traffic infringements are just revenue raising" people (I'm actually kind of mortified if I came off that way!) And living where I do in a fairly dodgy (by Canberra standards) place in the inner north, I'm pretty aware of the 'world around me' which contains much worse things than some guy having a go at me on the Internet. (I could easily afford to live elsewhere but being relatively young, I'm attempting to save a deposit for a house, and the rent is cheap here).
Anyway it's all good - I was wrong (and lazy with regards to research) and you pulled me up on it. I don't think you're trolling. I was just taken aback a bit. I do respect you for the ability to state a strong and well-founded opinion with no pretence of needing to sugar-coat it or 'be nice'. I certainly couldn't do it - weak and naive perhaps. So apologies for my lazy post and my thin-skinned reaction to your reply. I probably just need to HTFU a bit.
Whoa, what the hell? Why are you so defensive/argumentative?!
I wasn't claiming to state facts - I was expressing my guesses on what purposes drones could possibly be used for (since the article didn't really go into much depth). One that sprung to mind was to replace police on the ground in situations like car chases. From your response I take it you have access to the statistics, and knowledge of the reasons drones are being considered, and that indeed, they ARE being seen as a solution to that problem. The article/headline does not convey that, in actually kinda gives the impression that they'd be ALWAYS flying. You OTOH seem to suggest they would be flown on-demand. That makes a lot more sense ... but was not obvious from the article.
The average guy, watching the news or reading the papers, would be lucky to hear about ~5 car chases per year. That's all I was saying. A sentence starting "you'd be lucky to..." is hardly the same as saying "there were" ... it's hardly indicating that the speaker is attempting to state actual facts. I don't have "delusions" about any of this - I am uninformed and was merely taking a guess based on what I observe. Now I know more details - so thank you for that, but I don't know why you think I was attempting to make an argument against drones, or to state facts. I was doing neither of those things, merely expressing what I imagine most average people would think reading this article.
Also at no point did I agree with the GP regarding the "victimless crime" thing. Just because someone adds a post to a thread does not mean they agree with everything in the parent post! Yet you take another vindictive stab at me, suggesting I think stolen vehicles are "another victimless crime?". What the hell? I never suggested any such thing. (Also what makes you think I'm going to make a 'next prediction' - I never even made a first 'prediction' ... just stated that I couldn't see, from the info in the article, what purpose/benefit these were going to bring cf. the associated cost).
Seriously I don't understand why you took this tone with me. You had a lot of interesting info in your post and it does appear that yes, in fact these drones are definitely worth considering. But it really seems you have a chip in your shoulder about something since you responded so aggressively to a post that was essentially a casual train of thought, rather than one purporting to be against the proposal, or one purporting to be stating facts.
DVDs aren't blurays. Also, games consoles don't seem to get treated in the same way as stand-alone players for some reason...I don't know the technicalities.
Yep. The ACCC is one government body that is very well respected here in Australia and usually (though not always) fights the good fight. They are the reason that things like DVD region locking isn't permitted here (DVD players in Australia are sold region-unlocked, capable of playing any disc). They are the reason we have a pretty competitive mobile phone and internet industry compared to many places (lots of choice of ISPs and phone companies compared to the US). They are the reason why there are certain automatic levels of quality guarantees and warranties for all products purchased in Australia that cannot be avoided by vendors no matter what disclaimers they may choose to write in the fine print.
TBH most Australian government bodies/public authorities, except the legislature itself, are run pretty competently and rank well by world standards of transparency/anti-corruption (though not as well as our friends across the Tasman in New Zealand - who are consistently at the very top of that list).
It's just the politicians (legislature) themselves that seem to be the idiots, mostly (especially at the moment with our minority-government situation and petty squabbles over relatively insignificant issues). But Australians don't have the same level of mistrust of government in general that they seem to in the US (where anything run by government is assumed to be inefficient and/or corrupt by default). Because on the whole, they do a decent job and keep this country running pretty smoothly (and importantly in the current economic climate - solvently, with low sovereign debt).
'Highway' doesn't necessarily mean a nice, 4-lane, divided, controlled-access road with no sharp turns. A highway, in Australia at least, is any trunk road between towns/cities designated as such. Plenty are crappy 2 lane roads with sharp turns, particularly in the mountainous areas in the east of the country. Hell, there are even designated state highways in Australia that are DIRT ROADS (e.g. parts of the Silver City Highway north of Broken Hill).
Having said that, as I local, I can tell you that the road in Canberra that is getting these point-to-point cameras is the Tuggeranong Parkway which is a metro-area, 4-6 lane, divided controlled-access road in relatively good condition. It would be difficult not to see other drivers on it. However Canberra also has a BIG problem with kangaroos - far moreso than any other capital city in Australia. Plague proportions really ... you'd be hard pressed to find a driver here that hasn't hit, or nearly hit, a kangaroo. And those are pretty big animals - cause as much damage as hitting a deer in the US.
Not in all states. And even in the ones that do restrict them, they aren't outright banned. You need a license to use them above a particular wattage.
Oh, you are right! Apologies to the parent :)
Yeah point-to-point speeding cameras may be new to the ACT but as you say I've seen them in Melbourne before, and there's been some on the Federal Highway in NSW (between Sydney and Canberra) for a while now. First genuinely effective way of ensuring people don't speed on a stretch of road that I've seen (let's face it, once you know where the traditional speed cameras are, you just slow down ... go past ... and speed back up again). They are a bit irritating because, yes I admit, I usually set the cruise control on 117 km/h going from CBR to SYD (on 110 km/h roads), which won't get you pulled over in NSW, but is enough to trigger these P2P cameras. The stretch between Canberra and Sydney is quite a decent distance too - around 30-40 km between each end, so you have to make sure you don't go over 110 at all during that period.
I knew American cellular plans were costly, but holy crap that is expensive. A $30 add-on just to tether!?
That's ~more~ than I pay per month for my ENTIRE PHONE PLAN (calls, texts, data). I can use the included data in any way I want, tethered or otherwise, no add-on required. And I live in Australia which is not exactly renowned for being cheap when it comes to telecommunications...
I'm actually moving to live in the US next year and will likely be there for a couple of years at least. Seems like I'll be spending a lot more on a mobile phone than I'm used to. (Though that's OK because the cost of most other things in the US - food, clothing, rent etc. - is ridiculously cheap compared to here)
Precisely. I honestly cannot see this happening. I live in Canberra and I can tell you that there's no way in hell they're gonna spend the money on expensive crap like drones in this city.
Drones would only help in situations where the cameras located a vehicle, and you needed to follow it. It could thus be useful to follow getaway cars from a major crime, hit and run perpetrators etc. ... but honestly the number of these situations in a given year in a city like Canberra with only ~400,000 people is not enough to justify the expense. We'd be lucky to have more than about 5 actual police chases a year here.
What I expect might happen is that they will expand use of the speed cameras to log unregistered and unlicensed vehicles (cop cars in Canberra already do this automatically using the RAPID system which scans the plates of other cars around the police car and alerts the officers if it detects one that's not registered). I have no real complaints about that - the RAPID system is very effective and unlicensed vehicles/drivers are generally not the sort of people you want on the roads anyway.
I think you might have taken a few exaggerated and inaccurate Slashdot headlines without the requisite grain of salt:
- Your point about guns is true, but keep in mind the context you are talking about here. There was very, very little private ownership of guns in Australia from the start. Gun laws were indeed toughened up and a buy-back instituted during the late 90s but it wasn't a particularly controversial issue because we simply don't have the gun culture that countries like the US do. If you have a legitimate reason to own guns (sports shooter, farmer, security, etc etc.) and are appropriately licensed, you could, and still can, own a gun. But the rest of us don't care that we can't because 99.9% of us never did and have probably never thought about guns in our lives.
- What non-opt out internet filtering? Please stop spreading this myth. That proposal never even made it to the "introduced into Parliament as a Bill" stage, let alone actually got through the House and Senate and enacted into law. It was shot down in flames by the public and by most of the political parties. Two ISPs did implement a very basic filter blocking a handful of sites using a trivial-to-overcome method (they were not forced to do so - they did it of their own accord). But there are literally dozens of choices of ISPs in almost every area and if you don't like it, you are free to move to on of the other 95% of ISPs who don't filter.
- What P2P traffic monitoring? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about and I follow the Internet industry here pretty closely. Are you confusing something you've read about a ~particular~ ISP's policy, and applying that to the country as a whole?
- Aussie cattle dogs as common as mud here - the stereotypical farmer's or tradesman's dog. They don't generally have the same temperament as a pit bull so I'm not sure why they would be legislated against? Particularly as they are considered a national icon in many ways.
Look I understand where you're coming from, but please, please remember that Slashdot articles are often hyped up, inaccurate and filled with hyperbole. Doubly so for stories originating outside the US where readers might not be aware of the other relevant facts and overall context of the article. The net filtering thing is a good example - it was constantly reported on here as if it was a done deal and we were all going to be subject to mandatory filtering, whereas the reality on the ground is that it was politically untenable and most people could see it couldn't/wasn't going to happen. And it didn't. A proposal by a few senators does not equal an enacted law ... but to this day half of Slashdot seems to think there is some kind of mandatory government-forced filtering here.
The Australian character has changed over the last few decades to be sure (although not so much once you move outside of the large cities). That is inevitable - we are still a young country that is still maturing in many ways. What has changed though is the degree to which every little idea, random thought and proposal is reported on (often in as inflammatory language as possible to get page views).
There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be levelled against Australia without having to make things up. And on the flip side there are plenty of areas in which we can say we have resisted some of the big brother stuff seen in other countries - we have nowhere near the level of CCTV coverage as Europe does, we still have decent warrant requirements and safeguards regarding wiretapping, we have strong privacy and consumer protection laws, and we can still get on a plane without being nudie scanned, without taking our shoes off, without having to package up our liquids into sandwich bags etc etc. Every country has its vices and I don't think anywhere can truly say it's resisted Big Brother completely, unfortunately.
Say what? Copper itself doesn't have inherently more latency than fibre (in fact, the propagation speed of a signal in copper is slightly faster than light in fibre). I suspect you are referring to frame interleaving commonly used on xDSL connections. Which can be turned off. My ISP allows you to change this setting from the toolbox on their website ... first hop latency reduces from ~20 ms to ~9 ms if I do so. Once you're past the first hop the additional latency to the destination will obviously be the same regardless of the last-mile medium of delivery.
A true fibre connection would reduce this first hop to almost zero, admittedly, so would still exhibit less latency - true. But I think it's a bit of a stretch to call an extra ~9 ms of latency a "problem of copper".
You can get it significantly cheaper than the RRP if you look around a bit. Plus remember it's a combined DSL modem, gigabit router, NAS, SIP VoIP/DECT phone base station etc. all in one...
Having said that, yeah, it costs more than typical consumer-level crap because, well, it is somewhat better than typical consumer-level crap. People here only change out their DSL modem/router very occasionally (I had my previous one for 8 years, and used it on 4 different ISPs during that time), so it's not too bad considering how long it will last.
Well where I live, nothing hangs above train tracks. They are either diesel powered (for long-haul interstate trains), or powered via electricity fed through the rails themselves (which AFAIK isn't capable of providing a data connection).
Oh agreed. What I was saying was merely that "more speed without an increase in download limit" isn't necessarily a bad thing (in general - this applies to any connection, home, mobile, or whatever).
If your mobile connection was your only connection, then yes, that would suck. :)
Huh? There's a big difference between "small chunks of text" that might only be a few MB per day, and the several GB per month that most cellular data caps are. I have a 1.25 GB cap on my current phone (could buy more, but don't need it) and I stream radio, watch Youtube on the way home, tether it to my laptop in areas where WiFi isn't required and I need to download a file etc. And I never come close to using my cap ... yet none of that would be possible with GPRS, or even EDGE.
What I'm saying is that there's a middle ground between "the Internet as you would use on a desktop PC", and "small chunks of text only". Plus, unless you're tethering, it's pretty unlikely you would WANT to use the Internet on a phone as you would on a desktop PC anyway...
And the WiFi on the train is served by what? Ah - a cellular data connection...
Incorrect. Wireless is a shared medium, and these results show what happens when you have only a handful of devices on a tower. Remember that the tower's wireless bandwidth is divided among all its users.
Wired connections (of any type, but in this case FTTH) do not have this limitation. They are also not susceptible to the other problems of wireless such as interference. They also have lower latency (admittedly LTE latency is very low compared to GPRS, EDGE, HSPA and HSDPA, but it still can't match fibre).
Both fast wired AND wireless technologies are needed. They complement each other, rather than compete with each other. Fibre is needed where a reliable, fast connection is required in a fixed location (homes and businesses). Wireless is needed so that communications are ubiquitous and available to people on the move. But the latter has limited electromagnetic spectrum to work with, and there is no point chewing up that valuable spectrum with mass data-transfer applications in a fixed location (streaming video to the home, for instance), when that requirement could be better satisfied with a wired delivery mechanism.
This argument is always made anytime mention is made of metered Internet plans, whether wired or wireless. The argument is "since I can exhaust this quota by downloading at the stated maximum of 'x' Mbps in 'y' hours, it's useless, and they should really only advertise it as being a 'z' kbps plan" (where 'z' is the bitrate that would be required to exhaust the given download quota in one month).
I don't buy that argument. My home internet connection is fast, and I would buy a faster connection if one was available, but I choose to pay only for a 30 GB download quota on it. Note that I say "choose to" - higher quota plans are available to me (up to 1 TB metered, or unlimited), but I don't need that much data, so I save a bit of money by just paying for 30 GB/month. The fact that, at my line speed, I could consume that 30 GB in a few hours if I so desired, is irrelevant to me. I don't need that much data ... but when I DO need/want something, I want it FAST. If the speed of my plan doubled tomorrow, it wouldn't make much difference to the amount I download. But it would mean I would only have to wait half as long when I did download. Which is good.
( NB. I'm not saying this applies to everyone. There are people with internet usage patterns out there that consume every bit of bandwidth available to them 24/7, and thus would start consuming a lot more if the speed was higher. I have friends who torrent everything under the sun just because they can, even though they will probably never get around to listening to/watching half of it. But for me? I download the stuff I want - that stuff happens to average out to 25-30 GB a month, so the 30 GB plan suits me. For 10 bucks extra per month I can upgrade to 100 GB ... so as my data requirements grow (which they will over time as the quality of downloaded media and size of software increases), I can just upgrade my plan as required. But that has nothing to do with ~speed~. I want as much of that as possible, even if I only have a small download limit. )
Oh and I forgot to mention: native IPv6. Useful if your ISP offers it (mine does).
Yep. The Airport Extreme is one of the very few consumer-grade routers than can actually route at 100 Mbps on the WAN side. Many so-called gigabit home routers can manage gigabit switching on the LAN side, but start choking on the WAN side once you get to about 50-60 Mbps.
Personally I use a FritzBox 7390. Can route at something like 400-500 Mbps on the WAN side so won't break a sweat doing 100 Mbps. Heaps of features in the firmware (QoS, VPN, SIP VoIP, DECT, traffic monitoring and blocking, line diagnostics blah blah) and compared to DLink and Netgear and all that other rubbish, and stable to boot. It is actually a combined DSL (ADSL2+/VDSL) modem and router but you can turn the modem part off and just use it as a plain old router. Has dualband 2.4 Ghz/5 Ghz WiFi too. Reason I picked this over the Airport Extreme is basically because the Airport Extreme doesn't have a web interface (you have to use Apple's proprietary configuration tool), and this does. Otherwise they are both excellent devices.
Not really a huge problem:
- For some Australian ISPs, it's likely that data related to this project will be unmetered (that is, not counted towards your monthly quota, if you have one); or
- You have an unlimited plan; or if you don't...
- You can limit the monthly data transfer in the software itself
I'm on a 60 GB quota personally but generally only use 35-40 GB of it a month. I've never come close to using it all, so I might as well help out with this and set a ~15 GB/month transfer limit on it, and it should be fine (if that's even necessary - my ISP may well make it unmetered anyway).
Not if you live in an apartment block. Every WiFi channel is so ridiculously congested it barely works during peak hours (though the 5 Ghz channels are usually OK ... not too many people have a router + machines that support it yet).
I have >10 machines in my house and all, except the tablet and the smartphone, are on GigE LAN. I use it too - regularly back up machines to the NAS which definitely appreciates having GigE (real-world I don't saturate it, but I do manage 50-60 MB/s).
Admittedly though TFA is talking about gigabit WAN (to the Internet), not LAN though...
This is not a new to Korean internet users. Most internal websites, online games etc. require your Korean national ID number (and hence real name) to sign up. Only new thing here is that an international site (i.e. Google/YouTube) is honouring that local law (which they have no real obligation to do).
There has long been laws requiring real name/ID online in Korea and from what I've observed in my time there, people don't really think much of it (though that doesn't mean they ~want~ it, per se). Plus, it's pretty easy to get fake Korean national ID numbers if you want to disguise your identity online (just ask any foreigner that has done so in order to play on Korean MMO/gaming servers).
Exactly right. My home DSL provider has already implemented native IPv6 and dishes out a whole /56 prefix to me when I connect. The prefix is static ... but I'm free to give each device in my home any IP within that (massive) address space that I want.
Having said that, you will note that by default, Linux and Mac OS X use the MAC address of the network interface to generate the IPv6 address. This can be changed or overridden, but it does mean that you get a bit closer in some cases to a 1 IP = 1 PC paradigm. Windows by default uses a randomly generated 'privacy IPv6 address' though, which is not tied to MAC address.